Wishing the Future Would Hurry Up and Arrive

Matt Harvey wasn’t great, particularly when the Cardinals put up a quartet of singles against him for a three-run second inning. But he wasn’t bad either — the rest of his five innings were solid, he seemed to gather himself and make adjustments against a good team, and talking to reporters afterwards he was dissatisfied and coldly furious, which is a point of view we could use more of around here. It was the kind of night an optimist would say is part of a young pitcher’s education — and if you can’t be an optimist about young power pitchers in September, perhaps you’re doing it wrong.

Jeurys Familia also made his Mets debut, and it was a glass-completely-full sight, even if it did come with an admonitory side of EXTREMELY SMALL SAMPLE SIZE. Familia began by fanning Lance Berkman with a riding 97 MPH fastball, gave up a hit, then induced a double play. I’m not sure how to say Familia’s first name: Gary Cohen and Ron Darling pronounced it “Jay-rees,” but others on Twitter said it should be “Jay-uh-rees” or “Heh-ooh-rees.” If Familia keeps pitching like that, we’ll get it figured out; for now, it’s comforting to think that with Harvey, Familia, Zach Wheeler and Jon Niese (at least when he’s interested in pitching), our future isn’t quite as dark as it may seem when nothing’s happening with runners in scoring position.

The rest? Well … umm … Andres Torres made a sensational catch. David Rackley called balls and strikes without offering further proof that baseball desperately needs to expand instant replay. Oh, and Fred Lewis made his Mets debut. That’s something, right? (Perhaps MattTuiasosopo didn’t get a call-up because navigating his last name and Familia’s first name would have been too much for us.) Jordany Valdespin returned with a cocky double, but Ike Davis quickly popped out before the veterans could get too upset by the way Valdespin smugly eyed third. And so on we go.

2 comments to Wishing the Future Would Hurry Up and Arrive

I’m sure pretty much every pitcher who has a lousy outing (and like you said, this one wasn’t even all that terrible) feels the same way Harvey did. But he actually says it out loud, which is kind of cool.

And Jeurys is quite a unique name; just searching on his first name pulls up nobody but him for pages and pages. However, I’m pretty sure that a J in a Hispanic name is either pronounced with an H sound (as in Jose) or a Y sound (as in Johan). I’ve never seen a Hispanic first name pronounced with an American J sound. But here’s a wild idea — maybe they should ask him!

Andee, all I know is, when I saw him warming up in the RF corner pre-game, for the Bisons in Pawtucket recently, I called him “Hay-yoo-riss”….and he obligingly came over and signed autographs, without correcting my pronunciation. It worked for me!

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